The idea of reforming capitalism from a left-wing perspective would be great if it would provide positive results. In reality, any person who really tries to achieve this without force or at least very clandestine methods will be assassinated. I see socialist parties joining forces with major parties that exist under capitalism, and I can’t help but think they are not operating from the same perspective as orthodox Marxism-Leninism. Social democratic groups might make some great changes or some great connections with like-minded individuals, but they will never put their hands deep in the ground and remove the foundations of the capitalist system at the root.
If you’re an anarchist or a social democrat just seeking to make the western world more liveable for yourself, your organization will work for the purpose that you want it to work for.If you are a third-worldist communist who wants to end slavery in the world, destroy the economic systems that allow poverty and exploitation to exist, electoral politics is never going to cut it.
I am not trying to lean into adventurism or tell people to do something I would not do. However, there are more ways to influence society than activism. media collectives and propaganda are effective, as shown by the shutdown of various revolutionary media organizations such as Redfish. Rightists are using these tactics without even being factually correct, and it’s gotten so bad for the government that even liberals have made it a priority to combat fake news.
If enough people want to end capitalism, they can’t kill everyone and they lose. It’s about winning over enough people to make sure that you cannot just be assassinated to keep the regime in power. The ruling party knows this though and it’s why they have created a society of apathetic, debt-ridden, depressed and hedonistic people that will never be able to challenge them politically. A good way to test if you truly are revolutionary is to see how the establishment reacts to your ideology. Good signs are assassinations, persecutions or general suppression of its members like what we historically see with leftist movements in this country.
Not only that, but vanguardism, in whatever form, demonstrably inevitably fails. If the revolution is led by a relatively small group with the majority of people simply being relegated to being subjects of the new order rather than subjects of the old one, those positions of authority will sooner or later be captured by the greedy and power-hungry and self-serving, and the society will be reduced to just another aurocracy, only notable for making a passing nod to some different ideological rhetoric than that favored by the previous autocracy.
So not only in bringing it about but in maintaining it as well, it must be the case that the people as a whole advocate for it and take part in it and defend it. It won’t, and in fact can’t, work any other way.